Queen - 1976-03-11 - Santa Monica, CA (AUD/FLAC)

(Audience FLAC)

Queen
Civic Auditorium
Santa Monica , CA
March 11, 1976
Barry G Master via JEMS

Recording Gear: Unknown portable cassette recorder with built in mono microphone

JEMS 2019 Transfer: Barry G TDK Audua master cassettes > Nakamichi CR-7A azimuth-adjusted playback > Sound Devices USBPre2 > Audacity 2.0 (24/96 capture to .wav > pitch adjustment > iZotope RX7 and Ozone 8 restoration and mastering > iZotope MBIT+ resample and dither to 16/44.1 > Peak Pro 6 (post production) > xACT 2.37 > FLAC

01 Bohemian Rhapsody introduction
02 Ogre Battle
03 Sweet Lady
04 White Queen
05 Flick of the Wrist
06 Bohemian Rhapsody > Killer Queen > The March of the Black Queen > Bohemian
Rhapsody (reprise)
07 Bring Back That Leroy Brown
08 Brighton Rock
09 Guitar Solo
10 Son and Daughter
11 The Prophet’s Song
12 Stone Cold Crazy
13 Doing Alright
14 Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon
15 Keep Yourself Alive
16 Seven Seas of Rhye
17 Liar
18 In the Lap of the Gods
19 Now I’m Here
20 Big Spender
21 Rock and Roll Medley (including Jailhouse Rock and Be-Bop-A-Lula)
22 God Save the Queen

Known Faults:
-The Prophet's Song: start slightly cut
-In The Lap Of Gods: start slightly cut
-Now I'm Here: start slightly cut

JEMS is thrilled to commence our partnership with longtime Southern California taper Barry G with this previously uncirculated and undocumented Queen master tape from the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium. Barry began taping in the early ‘70s and has been active ever since, though his later work focused more on video than audio. In his heyday, Barry was a dual threat, not only recording the shows he attended but photographing too with impressive results.

Beyond his own recording, Barry was a close friend of the late Mike “The Mike” Millard, attending many concerts with him and helping Mike make his recordings. Like Jim R, Barry has shared with JEMS some Mike the Mic recordings not in general circulation which will be part of our continuing Lost and Found Mike the Mic series down the road. But before we get to those, we have a great Queen artifact to bring forth.

Barry caught Queen on their third U.S. tour in support of A Night At The Opera. The band would play four shows over three nights in Santa Monica according to the Ultimate Queen website, playing early and late shows on the 9th, plus shows on the 10th and 11th, with this the closing set of the four. While Barry was not using Millard-caliber equipment, his recordings are a material step up from many of the built-in mic cassette captures of the era. There’s slight distortion when the levels get hot, but the recording is otherwise close, clear and lively. Samples provided. Barry says he sat in Orchestra C, Row 15.

Given there are only three extant recordings of the 1976 U.S. tour, Barry’s Santa Monica document is a major find for Queen fans. The performance is equally appealing with lots of Freddie Mercury audience interaction and peak band performance.

Barry is putting his deep archive of audio, video and photographic goodies into a website called Barry Goldstein Concert Closet. The old site is still out there on the web and a new and improved site is on the way.

JEMS wants to thank Barry G for trusting us with his incredible work, both audio and photo, and for deciding now was the time to share that work widely with fans. Please let him know how much you appreciate it in the comments. Of course, these shows would all be stuck on hard drives if it wasn’t for the work of mjk5510. As always, we couldn’t do it without you.